in separate calls with president obama. so president obama has been on the phone here at the white house with the democratic leaders over in capitol hill, and discussed this deal with them, and both of the top democrats in congress have agreed to the terms of this deal so it looked like they have an agreement to proceed and we have something that congress, boat houses of congress can move forward with if biden doesn't get too much resistance tonight and speaker boehner agrees to put it on the floor in the coming days. >> let's bring in a democratic senator, jeff merkley of oregon is joining us. you're getting ready to go into this democratic caucus meeting with the vice president, joe biden. what are you hearing right now? are you on board? >> we haven't heard the detail said, but there's three main things we want to nail down. first is fairness to people who versus those who are best off in society. the second is are we looking down the road to another fiscal cliff, such as sequestering or the dent ceiling kicking in a few